Karachi police say they have arrested a man in connection with the alleged rape of a foreign national in the city’s Defence Housing Authority, a day after officers registered a case based on the woman’s complaint.
South Deputy Inspector General Syed Asad Raza told Dawn that the suspect is now in custody. He said the complainant, a 49-year-old medical assistant in cardiology based in the United States, had arrived in Pakistan on November 13 and was living in DHA’s Phase VI. Police surgeon Dr. Summaiya Syed said Darakhshan police brought the woman in for a medical examination on Friday after she came forward with her complaint and that samples had been collected for serology and DNA testing.
The first information report was filed on Friday, within hours of the alleged incident, under Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which covers the punishment for rape. Police say the investigation is ongoing.
According to the FIR, the woman, a permanent US resident who has been living in DHA since April, said the alleged assault took place in the early hours of July 17. She stated that a man she later came to identify had walked her home after she agreed he could join her for a drink, and that she subsequently woke to find herself being assaulted, taking a moment to fully register what was happening before she resisted, screamed, and struck him, at which point he fled on a motorcycle. She described trying to chase him before collapsing to the ground in distress. A woman and her two daughters nearby came to her aid, offering her a shirt and helping her back to her apartment.
The FIR goes on to state that the suspect returned to the apartment shortly after, apparently to retrieve his phone, and that the woman confronted him again before he fled a second time. She said she again attempted to follow him but was unable to and collapsed on the street before someone called the police, who took her to the station.
The case follows a similar one reported on July 2, when Lahore police registered an FIR after two foreign women, from the Netherlands and Venezuela, alleged they had been abducted and sexually assaulted during a visit to Pakistan. Four suspects were later arrested in that case, one of whom was reported to be related to a senior political figure.
